Travelogue of Flint Silverspire, date… honestly, I've forgotten. Time's getting meaningless to me, and that's a sign of progress.
Musing on my fateful comment “tomorrow will be difficult”, I'm starting to realise just how applicable that is to any given day when you're spending your time at the gateway of the Darklands in a haunted ruin beyond your understanding. Still, it seems that the local cult isn't interested in any conflict, and has suprisingly been rather helpful. I suppose that when you take the likes of Nali as your regular company, run-of-the-mill cults become a common sight… either that, or I'm becoming desensitised. It doesn't matter, anyway. Can't light a fire without buring something, after all.
This level of the caverns never ceases to amaze. Our previous encounter with the Effigy (which now lives in a shrunken form on Theo's desk, potentially for the rest of eternity knowing Gnome lifespans) left an entire room open for looting, or so we though. Morgeth (perhaps the most rational, sane person I have encountered here including myself) is usually our most reliable lock-picker, but nothing could have prepared us for a Blast Tumbler. I used to specialise in defeating magical traps, and this time I was almost sent right to Pharasma's front door by one of the most basic, if most lethal, ones. I had to de-stress by venting to someone, so naturally poor Cordelia's bound to wake up rather confused. I let the others say hi - big mistake. If you're reading this, sorry.
The Blast Tumblers did prove most useful, however. They were particularly volatile, exploding outward when struck by even a cantrip, and we lured Callido Haruvex's (An undead with a direct connection to Belkora herself) into their range and proceeded to unleash their might upon him. I'm sure we would have lost if not for the quick thinking that inspired such a strategy. With him gone, we used his keys to access two rooms. One was an alchemical store that suffered a shelf collapse that resulted in several litres of Alchemist's Fire igniting simultaneously (thankfully, years before we entered). The others revealed enough money to pay off my family's bail (or fund something *powerful*), and enough adamantine to make a Dwarfen swordsmith blush. All in all, a good haul.
Musty old tomes aren't really my thing, which could be considered surprising. I've always been a fan of abridged copies that rely heavily on diagrams and simplified formulae, so the entire collection we discovered is likely headed for Theo's desk. That is, if Nali doesn't want them first. Information on devils is hard to come by where I'm from, so I understand that she'd be interested in at least skimming the collection.
And to round off the trip, we encountered an Ofalth. For the uninitiated, just imagine a a creature so disgusting that the boundery between it's body and the refuse it covers itself in is imperceptible. I wasn't going to risk letting that touch my skin, and thankfully I had just the polymorph spell prepared for the situation. Transforming oneself's entire body into an amorphous ooze isn't precisely something I'd recommend in a public space, but it beats getting Ofalth grime on your clothing.
Regardless, I suppose I'll contine to venture further. With each day, the visions of the future become shorter and clearer, and I know this means a breakthrough is approaching. Rusty's got my back - and I hope the others remain trustworthy. You never know how someone can change when there's a big, metaphorical pile of gold in front of them…
P.S. Don't use Scroll Robes without an under-layer. It took me an hour of repeating Prestidigitation to get the ink out of my shirt. If that had touched my skin, I'd have passed for a shadowcaster.